The Polar Express: The Video Game
The Polar Express is an action-adventure video game based on the 2004 film of the same name. It was developed by Blue Tongue Entertainment, published by THQ and is available on the PC, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, and PlayStation 2. A demo version of the game was available for download on the film's official website. Gameplay The game follows most of the main plot of the film. One major difference is that the Ebenezer Scrooge Puppet, who only makes a minor appearance in the film, plays a much bigger role as the main antagonist with a goal to keep the children from believing in Santa Claus by stealing their tickets, thus getting them thrown them off the train so that they will not get to the North Pole. The game features fifteen levels, which are divided into six chapters, giving players the opportunity to explore areas like the train, the North Pole and more. The player controls Hero Boy in each level, which features puzzle-solving and minigame-styled elements, as well as coins and toy parts to collect. Every twenty coins collected earns the player an additional life while finding enough toy parts to complete a toy unlocks a bonus feature. Several scenes from the film with altered music appear as cutscenes. Levels Chapter 1: The Polar Express * Scrooge's Plan: The Scrooge puppet steals and hides all the children's tickets. The children go off to find them with the help of Hero Boy while Hero Girl stays to distract the Conductor. Along the way, they encounter some of Scrooge's friends who use various tactics to try keeping the children from finding the tickets, including hiding in a darkened car and starting a food fight in the dining car. Know-It-All is one of the children whose ticket was stolen. This level is featured in the demo version. * The Lonely Boy: The train passes by Billy's house, so Hero Boy goes to pull the emergency brake, despite the possibility of getting thrown off the train. However, Scrooge is blocking access to the brake and Hero Boy must throw balls at him to clear the way. * The Lost Ticket: Hero Boy continues to help find the other children's tickets. He plays tennis with a Jack-in-the-Box in a box car and sneaks past the cook in the kitchen car, who was angry about all the food wasted in the food fight. Next, he clears a box car of mice (which turn out to be just toys) and uses an ice smasher to smash large blocks of ice, one of which has a ticket frozen inside. Finally, he fights some Jack-in-the-Boxes by throwing toys at them and hitting them with a big mallet. With all the tickets retrieved, everyone heads back to the passenger car. Parts of this level are featured in the demo version as part of the "Scrooge's Plan" level. Chapter 2: The Rooftop * The Rooftop Rescue: Scrooge is angry that everyone retrieved their tickets, so he steals Hero Girl's ticket and sticks it to the air vent. The Conductor comes by to punch her ticket, but since she cannot find it, the Conductor takes her away. Hero Boy finds the ticket on the air vent and goes after Hero Girl and the Conductor by walking across the passenger cars, dodging various obstacles in the way, including signals, bridge and water towers. Along the way, he meets a Hobo. * Chasing the Train: The Hobo is impressed with Hero Boy's determination and helps him get to the locomotive by taking a shortcut, which involves jumping off the train and skiing down the hill. Hero Boy is responsible for shifting his weight to the sides in order to steer them out of the way of upcoming obstacles, including logs, trees, houses and icicles. This level is featured in the demo version. Chapter 3: The Engine Room * Repair the Engine: Hero Boy lands in the engine room to find Hero Girl driving the train. Suddenly, Hero Girl uses the wrong controls, nearly causing the locomotive to explode. Luckily, Smokey and Steamer return to the engine room to fix everything. Hero Boy helps by grabbing parts that fall out and throwing the green ones to Smokey and the blue ones to Steamer. * Stoke the Flame: After the caribou clear the track, Smokey and Steamer have to get the train moving again. The Conductor, impressed with Hero Boy's skills, asks if he can help and he agrees. The goal is to mimic Smokey and Steamer's dance moves, which involve digging and shoveling. Soon, the train is moving again, but the Conductor brings up Hero Girl not having her ticket, which reminds Hero Boy that he still has it and gives it to her, saving her from being thrown off the train. Chapter 4: Back on Board * Toys! Toys!: Hero Boy and Hero Girl make their way back to the passenger car when they encounter the Jack-in-the-Boxes again. Like earlier, Hero Boy fights them by throwing toys at them. After that, they enter the frozen room again, but find a pair of ice boots, which Hero Boy uses to walk across the car and move the crates, clearing a path for Hero Girl, who slides across the ice, using the crates to steady herself. They also go through the car with the mice, so Hero Boy catches and throws them in the bin again, like he did earlier. * Scrooge's Last Stand: Hero Boy encounters Scrooge again, who has become very large since the last encounter. Hero Boy tells him Christmas is more about giving and sharing than about toys, but Scrooge just scoffs. Hero Boy throws snowballs at his chest, which weaken him, while resisting the vibrations caused by him pounding the ground. * Hot Chocolate: After Scrooge is defeated, the Conductor shows up and invites the children for refreshments in the dining car, which include hot chocolate and cakes. However, they are short one waiter, so Hero Boy is asked to fill in. He learns how to serve the other children by watching what the other waiter does and copying his moves. Afterwards, Hero Girl gives Hero Boy a refreshment she saved for him, then asks the Conductor if they can give Billy some hot chocolate, which he agrees to. Chapter 5: The North Pole * Runaway Car: The train arrives at the North Pole and all the children get off, but Hero Boy and Hero Girl notice Billy staying behind and go back to try convincing him to come. However, Hero Boy steps on a lever which uncouples the observation car and causes it to roll down the hill. The children use the brake wheel to tilt the car and avoid hitting pot holes, oncoming vehicles and other passenger cars in the way. However, they cannot tilt it for too long or else it will fall over. At the end of the tracks, the car stops on a turntable. * North Pole Center: After witnessing the elves using the pneumatic, the children decide to use it to get back to the North Pole Square. The pneumatic has a screen which shows what color switch, blue, green or yellow, the player has to hit in order to switch the right gate. The pneumatic stops at a factory where the children get off. Chapter 6: Race to Santa * Sorting Room: At the factory, Billy sees a present that he thinks might be for him and chases it, but gets separated from Hero Boy and Hero Girl in the process. The player must catch up to Billy by using the conveyor belts to make it through the factory. Pulling levers changes the direction of the belts. Each room has a tunnel which take the children to the next room and other tunnels which take them to a different part of the same room, the latter of which are marked by lights of the same color. * Inside the Sack: The children go down a slide and land in a big pile of presents. They must climb it like a ladder to the top to get out of the factory. There are obstacles along the way, including presents that bounce or elevate, as well as vines which the player can climb or use to swing across large gaps and Jack-in-the-Boxes which allows them to make tall jumps. * Final Delivery: The presents are lifted in a big bag by a pair of zeppelins. The captain, who initially seemed angry at the children, is actually glad to have them on board because he needs someone to fly the zeppelin while he goes to help the other elves. Hero Boy agrees to help, but he has to avoid hitting bridges, hot air balloons, ships and buildings to keep the bag of presents safe and arrive at the Square before time runs out. When they arrive, the captain returns to take over again. Demo version For the PC, a demo version of the game was made available free to download. It features only two levels. The first one uses elements from "Scrooge's Plan" and "The Lost Ticket" while being called the former. The other is "Chasing the Train". Cast * Tom Hanks - Conductor, Hobo, Santa Claus (film scenes) * Jim Hanks - Conductor, Hobo, Santa Claus, Ebenezer Scrooge Puppet (game scenes) * Daryl Sabara - Hero Boy * Nona Gaye - Hero Girl * Michael Jeter - Smokey and Steamer (motion capture) * Eddie Deezen - Know-It-All * Jimmy Bennett - Billy * André Sogliuzzo - Smokey and Steamer, Jack in the Box (voice) * Charles Fleischer - Elf General * Chris Edgerly - Chefs, Waiters * Amber Hood - Heather, Juan, Ping * Hope Levy - Gus the Toothless Boy Development THQ first unveiled the game at the E3 convention in 2004. The PlayStation 2 version has EyeToy support, though they did not give specifics at the time. A Game Boy Advance version of the game, developed by Tantalus, was also in development. Reception The PC version received generally mixed reviews while the other console versions received mostly negative reviews according to Metacritic. Differences from the Film * The opening scene is more similar to the book with most of the scene at Hero Boy's house cut out. * Several of the cars in the train, including the kitchen car, the dining car and the box cars, never appear in the film. * The film does not feature any sentient toys. * Know-It-All says in the film that Hero Girl will be thrown off the train for not producing a valid ticket, which only implies the rule being true. In the game, the Conductor directly states it as being part of railroad regulations. * In the film, the train does stop at Billy's house, but Billy still had trouble getting on because he initially turned it down, but the train was already moving too fast by the time he changes his mind. * After Hero Boy stops the train for Billy, the Conductor says, "Who in the blazes pulled that cord?!" instead of "Who in the blazes applied that emergency brake?!" * While the Hobo was multiple cars away from the rear of the train in the game, he was on the observation car in the film. * Hero Boy and the Hobo ski down the cars instead of down a hill to get to the locomotive. * The film does not feature the part where Hero Girl nearly causes the locomotive to explode, though a deleted scene, "It Takes Two", is similar. * In the game, the Conductor seemed to have already known that Smokey's screaming could be understood by the caribou. * Hero Boy does not help Smokey and Steamer get the locomotive moving after the caribou crossing in the film. * Hero Boy gives Hero Girl her ticket after the Ice Lake scene, which is completely absent in the game along with the Glacier Gulch scene. * The hot chocolate scene is different from the film version in several ways. It takes place a lot earlier and not in a separate dining car, Hero Boy does not fill in for a missing waiter, and only hot chocolate is served. * The observation car's brake wheel functions as a real brake in the film. Plus, no big jumps are encountered along the way and the hill in the game has parts that are not as steep. * The children do not use any controls while riding the pneumatic. * While Billy does follow his present in the film while in the factory, it does not get him separated from Hero Boy and Hero Girl. * When the children land in the presents, they are already at the top of it. Plus, none of the presents are bouncing or elevating and there are no vines. The pile also appears to be a lot bigger in the game. * The children were never on board the zeppelin. * The game features two moments where Know-It-All saying he was only following the other children, once to the captain when on board the zeppelin and the other time, in a scene from the film, to the elves who rescue the children from the bag. * The game does not feature the scene with Santa Claus giving the first gift of Christmas. * All the events occurring after Santa leaves to deliver the presents are omitted. Trivia * The game was released on the GameBoy Advance and the PlayStation 2 in the PAL region on the same day as Chris Coppola's birthday. Screenshots PastryChefsinpolarexpressgame.jpg PolarExpressinpolarexpressgame.jpg External links * PC Demo Direct Download * The Polar Express on IMDb * ''The Polar Express ''on Crappy Games Wiki Category:Merchandise Category:Games